Latham calls WTO talks a failure for farmers

One of the Iowa delegates to last week’s World Trade Organization talks says the event was a “failure” for U-S farmers. Congressman Tom Latham, a republican from Iowa’s 5th District, says the trade talks went very poorly in terms of the goals for agriculture that were set ahead of time.Latham says high-tech, financial and other issues were to be kept apart from agricultural negotiations, and that didn’t happen in Seattle. He says the talks were to focus on agriculture for a change, but U-S negotiators had to alter their planned stance.Latham says President Clinton’s comments hurt the agricultural end of the talks and “undercut” what negotiators were trying to do. Latham says he is still hopeful for the future of agriculture.He says little was done in the talks to change the negative perceptions the Europeans have about genetically-modified or G-M-O grains.